Arid Zone Research ›› 2025, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (1): 166-178.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2025.01.15

• Agricultural Ecology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

An estimation method of remote sensing evapotranspiration in farmland based on the three-temperature model with adjoint calibrated of WOFOST

FENG Kepeng1,2,3,4,5(), XU Dehao1, ZHUANG Haoran1   

  1. 1. School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia, China
    2. Engineering Research Center for Efficient Utilization of Modern Agricultural Water Resources in Arid Areas, Ministry of Education, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia, China
    3. Ningxia Engineering Research Center for Water-saving Irrigation and Water Resources Control, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia, China
    4. Key Laboratory of the Internet of Water and Digital Water Governance of the Yellow River in Ningxia, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia, China
    5. Arid Irrigation District Hydrology and Smart Water Conservancy Field Scientific Observation Research Station, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia, China
  • Received:2023-09-20 Revised:2024-01-03 Online:2025-01-15 Published:2025-01-17

Abstract:

The method for estimating evapotranspiration using remote sensing evapotranspiration models has been widely applied, but there is need for research into improving its accuracy. Crop growth models exhibit strong mechanistic foundations and accuracy in simulating crop transpiration. This study integrated the WOFOST crop growth model with the three-temperature remote sensing evapotranspiration model to design a novel method for estimating remote sensing-based evapotranspiration in maize fields. The core approach involved localizing the WOFOST model, validating its simulation accuracy, and using its simulated crop transpiration data to construct an auxiliary calibration function. This function calibrated the transpiration component of the three-temperature model and combined it with the calibrated soil evaporation component to derive the evapotranspiration for the maize fields. Using actual evapotranspiration observed by an eddy covariance system as a reference, the estimation accuracy and applicability of the novel method were evaluated. The results showed that the correlation coefficients of evapotranspiration, crop transpiration, and soil evaporation in the uncalibrated three-temperature model were 0.61, 0.71, and 0.12, respectively, with root mean square errors (RMSE) of 1.76 mm·d-1, 1.91 mm·d-1, and 3.02 mm·d-1, respectively, and negative Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficients. After calibrating only the soil evaporation component, the correlation coefficients improved to 0.77, but the error remained large (1.91 mm·d-1) with a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient of -0.74. However, when the three-temperature model was calibrated using the WOFOST-simulated crop transpiration data, the correlation coefficient between the estimated and observed values significantly increased to 0.89, the RMSE decreased to 0.65 mm·d-1, and the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient reached 0.79. These results indicate that the proposed method effectively improves the estimation accuracy of the three-temperature remote sensing evapotranspiration model and offers insights for enhancing the accuracy of other remote sensing evapotranspiration models.

Key words: harmonic analysis of time series, adjoint calibrated function, k-means++ algorithm, crop growth model, evapotranspiration